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Long dispute over storage of waste fuel nets $31 million

We Energies sued the federal government 10 years ago, after the U.S. failed to open its Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. After more than a decade of litigation and negotiation, the Milwaukee utility said it has reached a settlement that will return $31 million to We Energies customers from Uncle Sam. »Read Full Article

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While good news for we energies ratepayers, it simply highlights the fact that there is no safe, permanent way to dispose of high-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants, which is so dangerous it must be kept out of the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. Given that, it makes no sense to expand the capacity of Point Beach, as is being proposed, or to relax the state law requiring a waste repository to be available before a new reactor can be built in the state, as is also proposed. Those expensive storage casks are a very temporary solition.

Yucca Mountain was the safe, long term storage solution, but the not in my back yard folks and paid off anti-nuc environmentalists blocked this storage site. We have to move on from Three Mile Island hysteria and accept nuclear power electric generation as a part of a sensible mix of power.

The old designs used in the US were a spin off of our nuclear weapons industry and not the best or safest for just power generation. There are plenty of safer and smaller designs available now using uranium as fuel and even a safer way using thorium as a fuel. The thorium way is safer as the weapon use plutonium is not a byproduct from that fuel burn

Start opening up the permit process and start new nuclear plants, plus restart the Yucca Mountain plan and everyone benefits.

The demvironmentalists are endangering everyone and impairing our prosperity with their classic play. By blocking Yucca Mt and other storage facilities they can claim waste issues and fight against nuke power. Like peak oil, it is a problem 100% of their own making, and being used to further their agenda.

Having temporary storage vaults by Lake Michigan, drinking water source for millions, is much better for them than facilities like YM. That way when their disaster in the making manifests itself, they can spin that to their advantage fighting nukes too. It is all a dangerous play for everyone but the anti-nuke environmentalists.

Cheap energy brings prosperity, prosperous people breed, and every child is an environmental tragedy. That is why they are against virtually every viable form of energy.